While most of us are happily employed or at least have a shelter over our heads, there are so many people who are not as fortunate. While living in Washington D.C. I have noticed more so than other cities the plight of the homeless or less fortunate. I know while I lived in Los Angeles and San Diego that such problems existed, but I never was really “aware” until I was awakened to it by a friend of mine over the summer. One of my personal projects this year is to get more involved with community service. In the past I was one of those people who would happily write a check to a charitable cause, but rarely got my hands “dirty.” Not this year…I have decided this month and next year to start a project of volunteerism to really give back to my community.

While I may be actively involved in Alpha Kappa Psi as a volunteer, I feel that is not enough. I need to really broaden my horizons and get more involved in my community and the well being of other, sometimes less fortunate people. This Friday I have volunteered to help out with a project with Build-a-Bear where I will be working from 8am – 10am helping coordinate the creation of 4,000+ bears and book care packages for the charity First Book. On Saturday I will be participating with the Alpha Kappa Psi Capital Area Alumni’s community service event with the Capital Area Food Bank from 1pm – 4pm where we will be helping sort food, create baskets, and various other “food warehouse” type work. I am super excited because this is kicking off my month of service, and my getting me pumped for volunteering more in 2010.

They say you should always donate “time, treasure, and talent,” and so many of us donate our treasure…but what a lot of these organizations really need are time and talent. I will keep posting about my experiences giving back to the community and help provide opportunities or point you in the direction of friends who have started Non Profits Organizations that need help.

I am a strong believer that when you are not looking for something, it just happens. When you actively seek things out (i.e., jobs, love, success, etc.) it always seems to be a more difficult process. You end up working hard trying to accomplish your goal and focusing a lot of energy on trying to obtain your objective. In the end, you either are successful or disappointed. I have found that sometimes, when you are not actively searching, life just drops in your lap. Whether its a new job opportunity (which happened to me in April 2008), a new love interest (my last girlfriend when I used to live in San Diego), or a promotion (this one doesn’t apply since I have always worked towards this)…it always seems that when you don’t look, life just falls into place.

This past week I was doing group interview with a bunch Business Students from various Universities, and someone asked me what my theme song would be.  I have to admit it took me a second to think about it, but I would say my new theme song is Michael Bublé’s “Haven’t Met You Yet”. I consider it is very fitting that it can metaphorically be anything that relates to not seeking those opportunities and letting them just fall in your lap. In this case, to be honest, I have realized I have lived my past 2 years keeping people at arms length and out of my inner defenses (i.e., friends, girls I dated, etc.). And as some of previous blog posts have hinted, I need to start being less defensive about relationships in general and just let things happen, instead of actively avoiding or sabotaging them. So…while I work on living more in the moment and not being so overly analytical…enjoy Michael Bublé – “Haven’t Met You Yet” official video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AJmKkU5POA or watch it here:

A few friends have noted that my blogs have been a bit dark lately. Normally, I would be much more cheery and happy going. Most people know me for my friendly personality and my contagious excitement about everything (except doing dishes and cleaning my bathroom). However, a month ago something happened that rocked my world. A few close friends knew about it and probably watched me go into a downward spiral into “my rabbit hole.” But I have some good news, I have seen the light at the end of the tunnel and while I have taken a journey for the past month, I learned a lot about myself and few lessons I can take away from the experience.

One of the lessons I will share with everyone is to make sure you follow the 3 Cs.  That is communicate, Communicate, and COMMUNICATE. Normally I am a good communicator, but I haven’t been so hot over the past 3 months. If you are silent, people tend to make assumptions and watch your actions. And if you are like me and you tend to withdraw, then people get the wrong impression. So what I learned was I need to be a better communicator, and that is my action plan for the rest of the year. On that note, I need to write some emails before I call it a night.

Do you ever find yourself doing something that you know is wrong? Are you one of those people who when the waitress says “careful, the plate it is hot” you touch it anyway. Or when someone says, “you can’t do that!” Do you do it anyway? I have noticed that sometimes human nature makes us do things we are told not to do. I do not know about you, but I hate being told I cannot do something. It makes me want to do it that much more, even if I know that it might be wrong. Now do not get me wrong, I think our minds normally kick in to protect us from doing something completely stupid, but sometimes our minds fail us…and we do something we should not (hopefully without disastrous results).

On the flip side, I have also noticed that sometimes our mind keeps us from taking action. Like we know if we continue down the path we are going at status quo we will have end up with a negative outcome. However, for whatever reason we do not course correct or take any action at all. I have been a few situations this summer where I know something I was doing was going to cause a negative outcome. Yet, for some reason I was unable or unwilling to take actions. I allowed things to fall apart around me, but did not stop it when I knew exactly what was going on. A good example of this is friends. Think of how many times we have neglected our friends, when we know that neglecting them will only cause the friendship to deteriorate. Yet, we do nothing, and watch as we drift apart from our friends. We know what is going on, because we are watching it, but we do not take any action.

What has impressed me the most is that I have started to reflect on what I did or did not do (in some cases) this past summer and I have started take actions to fix it. It is never too late to repair something, you just have to acknowledge what is going on, take a step back, and reflect on it. Then you can re-approach the situation with a fresh pair of eyes and hopefully resolve it. And sleep sometimes is essential to having a clear head. On that note, I probably should get to sleep as it is almost midnight.

Well I started to realize after a previous blog post a few days ago is that I have to really get my apartment in order. I mean no fooling around and start to tidy and organize. I think the days of hiding behind my apartment’s messiness is long overdue. I think it is time to lower at least one of my walls and at least make it so that I can have friends over if I so choose. I had bought last month the Beatles Edition of Rock Band, it was originally a surprise for a friend of mine who I know was craving Rock Band. However, I realized I have no place to put the thing in my apartment, so I returned it a few weeks ago. Maybe if I get my apartment tidied up I can have Rock Band parties, or even WII parties.

So I am decided to chunk the apartment into manageable sections to try to make this easier to accomplish. This week the goal was the Kitchen to get all of the counter tops de-cluttered.  Next week it will be my dining room area. I am doing pretty good thus far, just have a looong way to go. Maybe one day, you will get the privilege of before and after photos. Now if I just had a cleaning helper around to help tidy.

On that note, I am going to call it a night and crawl into bed. Thankfully a good friend helped (ok they cleaned it completely) part of my bedroom so that I can maneuver into bed and its pretty tidy compared to before. Perchance to sleep and ponder how to continue to lower my walls and be less defensive.

I have noticed I have another built-in defensive mechanism. I keep my life extremely busy, and I rarely have down time for myself. If I find a block of time that is empty, I fill it. One of the easiest ways for me to fill my weeks and sometimes weekends is with work. Now this past month has truthfully been busy at work, but prior to this I noticed I would work later or longer just so I would not think about things. When I am work, I am trying to be focused, and outside distractions are kept at bay.

Why would I mention this? Well, I noticed that in the past 2 years I have worked in a way that has kept me single. Do not get me wrong, I am not complaining about being single, far from it, but I have noticed that it is a bit of a defensive wall I have. How can you seriously date someone if you are always working. Most women put up with it for maybe a few dates, but when they get the 3rd, “I have to work late this week, I can’t meet for dinner/drinks/coffee/movie” I think they just figure it is time to move on. What is extremely interesting is that if I met the right person, I think I would clear my calendar for them. But I say think, because I haven’t had a chance to really test this theory out yet.

I sometimes wonder if my working so much, is me either (1) just working a lot because I like work, (2) working a lot to get stuff done for work, or (3) a defensive mechanism to keep people from getting too close to me. I am starting to think it is #3, and the reason I think this is because I have noticed most recently that it has impacted me in a negative way with someone I started to care for (yet couldn’t really explain/show/smoke signals/write how I felt about her). It is strange, I think our brain is a very complex muscle that sometimes puts defenses in place to protect ourselves subconsciously. It will do what it thinks is best to protect the entire body, and if that means being cold and distant, or working long hours…I think it creates walls around us. The problem is when you can’t override your brain and you let it put walls up around you. On that note, I have to go repair a few cracks in my defensive walls, you know…to keep the invaders out.

I have noticed that I have a built-in defensive mechanism. I keep my apartment disorderly to keep people out of my apartment. If my apartment is messy, then I won’t invite people over (not typically), because I am inherently embarrassed about it being messy. It is a bit of a interesting dilemma. I don’t clean because if I had a clean apartment I would have people over.

Since I moved to DC last year, I have only had 2 people come over to my apartment and in both instances, the individuals were shocked at the state of my apartment. I like to think of it as organized chaos, but it is actually chaos. In BOTH instances the individuals offered to clean my apartment.

I try to figure out why this makes me uncomfortable. In some sense I think it is chipping away at the wall I put up around myself to isolate myself from my dating people. I have no issues about meeting up with people, but I start to squirm when people suggested I host an event at my apartment. So one thing I think I will have to do this year, before the end of the year, is sort out my apartment.

Someone close to me started to help me clean and that was a motivator to keep cleaning. But that has since ended, so I don’t have anyone prompting me to clean anymore or helping me. Maybe if I spent an hour a day tidying, then my apartment would be presentable and I could invite people over? Hmm, something to think about…but do I really want to lower my defenses? It was nice for 1.5 year  to be able to keep people at bay. Made dating very simple…you don’t do it. Because you can’t date if your date can’t visit your apartment.

This rabbit hole is really deep…and dark…and interesting.

Sometimes when my mind starts to wander, typically late at night between that magical moment when I am about to pass out in bed, I think about life in general. I wonder about whether I will be successful at work and how to maintain those strong networks I have built over the years. But some of you have started to realize something is not quite right with me. I have been evasive, elusive, and down right distant in the past month. To be honest, only a handful of people know, but I have started to reevaluate my life priorities (and myself as well). I normally would never publish something like this in a public forum, but I have realized that I have at the end of the day gone down a rabbit hole, chasing the white rabbit. Sometimes I wish I had taken the blue pill…and blipped through life not even thinking. But I took the red pill, and with the red pill came a bitter truth that I started to realize I was not ready to face.

Have I intrigued you? Do you want to know more? Let me know and I too can offer you the red pill. You can take a journey with me through my blog and understand what makes Alexander tick.

As always, globalsuit.com is my personal blog, where I expound on being global, being a suit, and well being me. However, this blog has now taken a turn into the rabbit hole. The question is are you going to follow me down it? And if so, are you ready to enter my mind?

If you are scared, that is ok…I am terrified.

Something I was thinking about the other day was the concept of Work-Life Balance. As I start to notice that myself and others work 10 – 12 hour workdays, I realized that there is a point where you have to really evaluate your situation before it becomes too late. And when I say it becomes too late, there are consequences to working 60+ hours a week. Most people have common sense to not push themselves that hard, but there are many, like myself who throw themselves into work for a variety of reasons. Maybe it is as a sense of escapism to get away from the pressures of non-work (that is my issue). Maybe it is a drive to be successful, to really push for that promotion, and be the shiny star at work. Maybe it is boredom, if you are not working, then what else would you be doing. Or maybe it is an inability to say no, and you find yourself getting more and more projects (this is also one of my issues). Whatever it may be, and whatever the reasons, there is a very negative impact on the person who is working 60+ hours and the people around them.

I have noticed that when I work those longer hours, I myself become more prone to getting sick, and when I do I get hit hard. Where the normal person probably can get over a cold in a few days, it can take a week for me to get better. Sickness and illness seem to come hand-in-hand with the increased workload and stress that comes with it. Over time it strips your immune system and when you get a cold, where a normal person can fight it off, you just succumb to it. It is like your body is making you rest by getting you sick. And sick time is the worst way to use your Paid Time Off (PTO).

Another one is friendships and relationships. I have found as my workload fluctuates, my quality of friendships fluctuates too. We start to make decisions on what we can and cannot do. And sometimes the friends or significant other takes a backseat to work. This is not fair to them, and certainly not to you. The worst case scenario is that because you are so absent from your friends they start to drift away, and they call or email less, because you either don’t reply in a timely manner or at all. In the case of the significant other you start to have fights or arguments and as with friends they too start to drift away or prepare themselves to end the relationship. Either way, if you work too hard, you risk losing your friends and your significant other.

So what is the solution? I think the solution is different for everyone, but one suggestion is to evaluate your current situation and decide what you can do to make it better. A second suggestion is communication, not just with your friends and significant other, but with your boss as well. You need to make time for them, as well as for yourself. A third suggestion, is learning how to manage expectations for everyone. If you have to really work, then if you communicate often and in timely, these types of situations will at least be less impactful if you are managing everyones expectations. In the end, I think the key is communication and sometimes learning to say no. Ultimately this is still a personal choice, but if unchecked, you could end up losing a lot.

On that note, I have to get ready to go into the office today.

An interesting concept is one around PERCEPTION. I have learned over my lifetime that PERCEPTION almost always equals REALITY. If I was to put it into a mathematical equation it would look like PERCEPTION = REALITY. Oftentimes we assume we know that individuals around us understand our true nature. Think of it as the credibility rule. It takes a lifetime to build credibility, and only 10 seconds to destroy it. PERCEPTION works the same way. If you were chronically late for work, almost always showing up to work an hour after you should be arriving, then you are some always chronically late.. Your boss would perceive you to be someone who is also always chronically late. The PERCEPTION that you are chronically late, will become your REALITY. The unfortunate part of this is that even though you may start to arrive to work on time, it would be viewed as an anomaly. Now where it gets interesting is that you can change the PERCEPTION that you are chronically late by repeating the same behavior over and over, i.e., arriving on work time (if not early). However, the moment you arrive to work late again, you completely destroy the hard work of trying to change people’s PERCEPTION of you. Again, it’s like the credibility rule.

This can apply to almost anything, and it can oftentimes be an unfair PERCEPTION. For example, I have a friend who among my circle of friends is perceived to be a Gossip Queen. She got caught gossiping on three different occasions and has since been dubbed the Gossip Queen. Regardless if she never gossips again, it doesn’t matter, because she going to be the Gossip Queen for a while. Even if she never gossips for a year, people will always say “I don’t trust her, she will tell everyone my business,” even if it is untrue. Sadly, her REALITY is that people’s PERCEPTIONS are she is a Gossip Queen. Even, if this is not in fact her nature, that was her REALITY. I think most of you can relate to this, because you all know someone who has been branded a Gossip Queen.

You can change how people perceive you, but it often a painful and long process. I myself have realized on numerous occasions that how people perceive me is my REALITY. In fact recently, I learned that someone’s PERCEPTIONS became my REALITY to the point that it fractured our friendship. The question is, if you lose a friend…how do you change their PERCEPTIONS, and even I don’t have a solution for that one. I am sure there are many PERCEPTIONS of me out there among different circles of friends, and all of them are my REALITY. The funny thing is that you often find out that you could have conflicting PERCEPTIONS depending on whether you are looking at your work, your friends, your spouse/significant other, etc.

On that note, I better get ready for work so I am not late today…again…